This invention relates to an improved holder for baby bottles, and more particularly to the type of holder which supports the bottle in a tilted position for a baby drinking from the bottle while lying on his back.
The present invention provides an improvement over known prior art devices for holding baby bottles, such as those disclosed in the following patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Patent No. Inventor ______________________________________ 2,881,999 H. Mitchell 3,000,601 C. R. Pedro 3,184,193 E. W. Melvin 3,222,020 H. K. Rea ______________________________________
The bottle holders disclosed in the patents to Rea, Pedro, and Melvin hold a baby bottle in a fixed, downwardly tilted position. These bottle holders work well for very small infants who drink from a bottle in which the nipple hole is usually so small that milk is not allowed to drip. For larger infants the nipple hole is typically larger to increase the flow. For these babies, a bottle held in a fixed downwardly tilted position will cause milk to drip onto the baby when he turns his head, or otherwise stops drinking from the bottle.
The patent to Pedro attempts to solve this problem by an extremely complicated mechanism which requires the baby's guardian to manually raise the bottle to a vertical nipple-up position each time the baby stops drinking from the bottle. The bottle holder still allows milk to drip onto the baby after he stops using the bottle, or turns his head, before the guardian has a chance to move the bottle to its vertical position.
The patent to Mitchell discloses a bottle holder which includes a spring-biased swivel for automatically rotating the bottle to a nipple-up position to prevent leakage after the baby releases the bottle. The Mitchell bottle holder works well for infants who are able to manipulate the bottle, but it does not accommodate the smaller infant for whom leakage is not a problem, and for whom the bottle should always be held in a fixed tilted position.